I was reading today that conservation groups have gotten the rebels in the DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo) to agree to stop killing gorillas. These particular gorillas are of the silver back variety (as seen in Congo the movie) and are extremely rare, something like 700 left in the world with over 300 of them in this particular forest in Eastern DRC. What brought this about is that the rebels have killed 2 gorillas and than ate them. At least they ate them, they didn't go to waste but its sad because these 2 were apart of a habituated group, meaning they were comfortable with humans and would allow them to come very close therefore making killing them much easier.
I am very impressed that such a deal was made, these are very vulnerable animals that are most likely going to be extinct within my life time. But something just seems off about this whole thing. The conservation group were able to sit down with the rebels (living in and around the mountains) and relay the importance of these animals and how important they are and they rebels agreed no more gorilla for supper?
First off, these people are poor, starving rebels living in the mountains, I'm really sure that when they see a gorilla and are starving to death this agreement will hold up. But this also brings up a very important moral issue as well though... gorillas or humans. As you all know I don't think it is necessary to eat animals for survival, and in a perfect world (or a first world country) it isn't, but when it comes to somewhere like the DRC... I'm not so naive and I do realize that its not that simple. I can't say how many people a gorilla would fed, I'm sure quite a lot they are big animals, but there is only 300 or so left in those mountains so really how long can a large group of rebels really survive on that. If they do continue to eat the gorillas they will inevitably become extinct, but the people will survive, but for how long - especially if the gorillas are gone, therefore not only killing off all the gorillas but the rebels too. So does that mean you stop the rebels from poaching the animals because the rebels are going to die off anyway once the gorillas are gone? Moral question of the day. I did make that argument slightly sensationalized they do have food obviously because otherwise they wouldn't have agreed to stop killing the gorillas, and there is other food sources in the mountains, but it does still make an interesting argument.
That was my firstly my secondly is the fact that these rebels seem so easy to deal with and open for compromise. Where were this negotiators/ big hearted rebels during the years of war, the DRC just held its first democratic election in something like 40 years. It just seems wrong that the lives of the gorillas can be saved with good ol' talking but it took years of war and countless deaths of people to bring some resemblance of peace to the DRC? WTF!!! Did no one try this approach before? Come on people learn to live with one another, your at least trying to make it work with the gorillas, humans can be that much harder - well... I'll wait and see who it works out with the gorillas first.
Side Note: It got up to 37 degrees and I'm on the top floor of an un-air conditioned building...pity me
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I was at an public session of a COSEWIC meeting today on the status of freshwater and marine fish in Canada. Jeff Hutchings (from Dal! woohoo!) gave a talk and he gave examples when the government wouldn't list a species/group as "endangered" because of socio-economic reasons. One example was the cod, which is obviously relied on by a lot of people. The other was the porbeagle shark. The government's reason for not listing it was that two people rely on the porbeagle shark for a large part of their income. Two!! They kept a fishery of an endangered animal open to save the income of two people! I think the rebels in the DRC could maybe teach the Canadian government some respect for endangered animals.
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